The best restaurants in London right now

Tiny islands of Britain

In his book 'Tiny Islands', Dixe Wills brings to life 60 of the best secret little islands to visit in England, Scotland and Wales. Here are six of the most enchanting of them, writes Laura Fowler.

The idea of the faraway isle never fails to seduce romantic souls. There you see yourself, leaving the first footprints in virgin sand on a deserted coastline you can walk around in an hour; or standing on a rocky outcrop at dawn, salty sea air whipping your hair, then later telling ghost stories by the fireside in the island's only pub. These are the kind of islands Dixe Wills writes about in his new book, Tiny Islands: 60 Remarkable Little Worlds Around Britain.

There are more than six thousand islands around the coastline and waterways of England, Wales and Scotland. Wills writes about 60 of them, all accessible to the public, all of which he has visited - by boat, train and bicycle - and all of which he manages to write about in witty, pithy, and engaging ways. He has unearthed the kind of historic facts you wish your history teacher had told you more of, tales of love and broken hearts, of barmy old relatives and bewildering bylaws.

The islands he choses are small enough that you will never forget, while you are there, that you are on an island, surrounded by water; cut off, if only by swimming distance or at low tide, from the rest of the world where normal people are mowing their lawns and driving to supermarkets.

Ynys Llanddwyn is not a place for the broken-hearted. It's a place for those still woozy with love's first intoxicating draft. It's a place for couples whose relationship is in danger of foundering on the rocks of cold sobriety and who yearn to be drunk with affection once more. It's a place for lovers whose mutual regard has stood the test of time and has deepened with the years.

Ynys Llanddwyn is very nearly not an island at all. Only at very high tides does the sea reach far enough up the sandy beach of Llanddwyn Bay to cut it adrift from the densely wooded Newborough Forest. The isle is very much a creature of the sea, however. It was created back in the absurdly ancient Precambrian era by small volcanic eruptions. When the molten lava hit the cold seawater above, it formed a small blob, which dropped onto other small blobs that had already cooled. The resulting oddly shaped 'pillow lavas' give Ynys Llanddwyn the look of a billowing sheet. Further outcrops appear to have burst out of the island's grassy skin, hurling themselves into the sea as if they knew the fate that's coming to us all.

A walk around the island's long finger of land is a gentle one, conducive to a quiet stroll taken hand-in-hand. Aside from the odd glimpse of a Soay sheep or a wild pony, the half of the island nearest the shore offers up no sign that it had been inhabited for the best part of 1,500 years.

STAY There is nowhere to stay on Llanddwyn. The nearest accommodation is on Anglesey, under canvas at Awelfryn Caravan Park (2.5 miles) and the Marram Grass Café campsite (3.5 miles). For B&Bs and hotels you'll have to head for Llangefni or Capel Coch for country-house hotel Tre-Ysgawen Spa.

It is a rare individual indeed who single-handedly makes such an impression on an island that their tenure there all but blots out whatever other history the place might have enjoyed or endured.

Such is the case with Derwent Isle - the man who made it his own being the otherwise entirely obscure figure of Joseph Pocklington.

The island's year of reckoning came in 1778 when Joseph Pocklington, the son of a banker from Nottinghamshire, paid £300 for it. Vicar's Island became Pocklington Island and its middle-aged owner with the silver spoon in his mouth was duly nicknamed King Pocky by the locals. He was to remain monarch for the next 17 years.

He immediately set to work transforming the 7-acre island. He employed people from nearby Keswick and beyond to build him a small mansion, a church, a boathouse disguised as a Nonconformist chapel, a porter's lodge and a miniature fortress with its own battery of small brass cannons that he named Fort Joseph (not that he was self-obsessed in any way). His tour de force, however, was the island's 'Druid's Circle'. It was based on the pre-historic circle at Castlerigg, not far from the lake, and Pocklington claimed that he had not erected it himself but discovered it.

King Pocky was, to say the least, an eccentric character. His constructions were considered tasteless by many locals, including William Wordsworth, who took particularly badly to the mansion, judging it to be a blot on the landscape.

Derwent Isle has been in the hands of the National Trust since the 1950s and it remains the only inhabited isle on the lake. Pocklington's creations, such as the mansion and the Nonconformist boathouse, are still very much going concerns on what is now a thickly wooded isle in parts.

GETTING THERE At the Derwent Water Marina there are kayaks, canoes, rowing boats, sailing dinghies and windsurfers for hire almost all year round. To visit the other islands on Derwent Water, you can hire rowing boats and small motorboats from the Keswick Launch Company from March to mid November. Only non-motorised boats are able to land at islands.

STAYThe Lookout is a 1920s house not far from Keswick landing stage with astonishing vistas from a large balcony. Campers have Castlerigg Farm, which comes with a terrific panorama of the fells and down towards Derwent Water.

Poets, musicians, painters, authors - they've all felt themselves moved to create art after an encounter with Staffa. You really can't blame the island if the results have often failed to match the grandeur of their subject.

It would be tedious to list all the notable people who came to Staffa in the 19thcentury when the island was a destination no self-respecting tourist could leave off their itinerary. Aside from Keats and Wordsworth, the luminaries included Sir Walter Scott, Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, David Livingstone (presumably), Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and JMW Turner, who reported getting caught out by the weather and only making it back to Tobermory on Mull at midnight. His doggedly blurry painting of Fingal's Cave was a greater triumph than Keats' poem, though again not one of his best. It was left to Mendelssohn, whose Hebridean Overture was inspired by his visit in 1829, to ensure the island's enduring fame.

But arguably the most interesting insight thrown up by Staffa came a year after Banks' 're-discovery' of the island, when Johnson and Boswell stayed with members of the MacQuarrie clan on nearby Ulva. Johnson wrote later: 'When the islanders were reproached with their ignorance or insensibility of the wonders of Staffa, they had not much to reply. They had indeed considered it little, because they had always seen it; and none but philosophers, nor they always, are struck with wonder otherwise than by novelty.'

GETTING THERE From the Isle of Mull, take the Ulva Ferry to Staffa. Boat trip company Turus Mara will waft you over to both Staffa (one hour on the island, if sea conditions permit) and Lunga, from Easter to October. Alternatively, Gordon Grant Marine Boat Tours sail to Staffa from Oban and Kilchoan on the mainland, Fionnphort and Tobermory on Mull, and Iona.

STAYLip na Cloiche, a family-run B&B with pretty gardens in Ballygown, is two miles along the coast from Ulva Ferry. Wild camping is discouraged along the lochside east of Ulva Ferry but there is a camping area at Killiechronan (six miles).

The year 1666 hasn't gone down in the annals as a glorious one in the history of London. However, it's an ill wind across Pudding Lane that blows nobody any good, and the Great Fire than consumed huge swathes of the capital proved to be the making of one small island in the Thames just off to the West.

Crossing via the graceful arc of the narrow footbridge - built in 1949 so that the then owner's pregnant wife could reach the island safely - today's visitor is met by a prospect of calm, rather formalised serenity. Beyond the effusive welcome of the enormous weeping willow, beyond the well-tended lawns grazed by peacocks and Canada geese, beyond the gardeners patiently watering the ornamental shrubberies, stand two equally effulgent but very different Palladian buildings, now a hotel, each in their own separate space and each exuding a sense of timeless solidity.

The Monkey Room within these buildings has, however, spawned an unhealthy amount of monkey-based activity on the island - or at least rumours of same. George III was sent here during his more extreme episodes of insanity and is said to have brought his pet monkey along with him. Much more recently, a monkey called Jacko was chained to a walnut tree on the island as a stunt to publicise the hotel. He escaped and, quite rightly, took out his vengeance on the people of Bray.

The hotel has snared its fair share of famous admirers. Edward VII and Queen Alexandra took tea on the lawns with their children and grandchildren (including the future George V, Edward VIII and George VI). Edward Elgar visited many times while composing his Violin Concerto in B Minor. Dame Nellie Melba and Clara Butt both sang to guests here, while HG Wells would row up from his uncle's pub in Windsor to meet Rebecca West. West found the atmosphere magical, and Monkey Island forms the setting for a great deal of her first novel The Return of the Soldier.

STAY You can stay on the island by checking in at the Monkey Island Hotel. The Wedgwood Suite, which was once part of the Duke of Marlborough's fishing temple, will set you back a pretty penny, but it's the best room in the place.

Gateholm is not an island that gives up its secrets willingly. The 100ft flanks of this flat-topped sentinel rise almost vertically from the Irish Sea. Once upon a time it formed a lengthy promontory thrusting out from the Pembrokeshire coast and the good people who lived here could simply stroll out along it.

However, since its conversion into an island by the ever-clawing waves sometime in the last millennium or two, a visit to this wild National Trust-owned outpost has entailed something a little more taxing. Indeed, unless you're a climber or happy grappling with almost sheer rock faces, you may have to content yourself with enjoying the vertiginous descent from the mainland to Marloes Sands and colonising Gateholm's bouldery foundations at low tide. At least you'll have the wonderful crimson rocks of Old Red Sandstone to gaze upon.

If you are confident about going up, by far the best option presents itself at the southeastern corner. A precipitous slope, doubtless caused by part of the island falling into the sea, leads up to the southern tip. The first 10ft of this incline will prove the trickiest to overcome since the rock face offers minimal hand and foot holds. The next section consists of further steep rock but with vegetation on the left-hand side. The final section is the easiest and it's possible to clamber up this onto the top of the island. The reward for scrambling up onto the island is a view of a thin flat curve of clumpy grass ungrazed by rabbits. A narrow path, now much overgrown and difficult to make out, winds its way to the far end, where an apologetically small cairn provides the island's only notable feature.

GETTING THERE From Marloes it's a two-mile walk to Gateholm. From the Marloes Sands National Trust car park, take the track past the YHA hostel to the end, turn left along the footpath, then right along the cliff path. Opposite Gateholm turn left down the cliffs, forking left half way down. It's a scramble over boulders to the foot of Gateholm. Alternatively, after passing Marloes Court, follow the signposts to Marloes Sands and walk west along the beach and over the boulders.

STAYYHA Marloes Sands could hardly be better placed for an assault on Gateholm and has private rooms as well as dorms. Foxdale (two miles) is a B&B, a self-catering apartment and a campsite.

Ah, Loch Lomond, where the banks are famously not just 'bonnie' but 'bonnie bonnie'. Stretching 23 miles from Balloch to Ardlui, it contains 23 tiny islands, and of all the 23, the most interesting is Inchcailloch.

A carefully maintained nature trail comprises a central path running about 1,000 yards from the north jetty to Port Bawn with two large loops off it. The low circuit takes in the church, burial ground and farm, while the high loop climbs Inchcailloch's hill. From the top, amid Scots pines that have resisted the invasion of the oaks, there's an almighty view over the islands of the loch and across to Ben Lomond and Ben Vorlich. A Spitfire came a cropper here during World War II, crashing into the trees at the summit. However, St Kentigerna was evidently looking out for the pilot, who emerged from his machine with nothing more serious than a broken leg to show for his misadventure.

The path snakes down the hill to Port Bawn, a natural harbour where a small clearing with some picnic tables, a compost loo and a warden's hut serves as a commendably unfussy campsite. Those fortunate enough to spend the night here get to share the island with redstarts, woodpeckers, tree creepers and wood warblers among other birds.

But perhaps the most enchanting thing about Inchcailloch is something that could not be guessed at, even by visiting it: beneath the island, running right along its length, is the Highland Boundary Fault. The Fault is a deep fracture in the Earth's crust fashioned when the continents of Laurentia and Avalonia collided about 450 million years ago. The crash caused some Laurentian islands to fuse together over the course of the next 40 million years, so creating what we now know as the Scottish Highlands. These crumpled up against an Avalonian island, consisting of (in today's terms) England, Wales and the Scottish Lowlands, and mainland Britain was born.

GETTING THERE At MacFarlane's Boatyard in Balmaha, boats are available for hire, or a ferry runs on demand to Inchcailloch. Most of the other islands on Loch Lomond are privately owned; day-tripping picnickers are tolerated on most but not all of the islands, and private piers and jetties should not be used at any time.

STAY You can camp on the island in the gorgeous tiny campsite Port Bawn, for a maximum two-night stay (and you have to take all your own drinking water). In Balmaha, there's The Oak Tree Inn and at Balmaha House B&B there's a one-room chalet with conservatory (Balmaha House also offers canoe hire).